News

$0.99 DRM-free tracks appear on iTunes [updated]

By Charles Starrett ● Monday, October 15, 2007

The iTunes Store is currently offering select DRM-free iTunes Plus songs for $0.99, 30 cents less than the standard price of $1.29. Music from Flight of the Conchords and The Perishers are among the $0.99 iTunes Plus offerings. At the moment, it is unclear whether this lower price is indicative of a move by Apple to reduce the price on all iTunes Plus tracks, bringing them closer to the pricing offered by the newly-launched Amazon MP3 store. iLounge has contacted Apple about this issue and will update this article if we receive any additional information. [via MDN]

Update: Apple has confirmed that it is reducing the price on all iTunes Plus tracks to $0.99.

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I’ve been very frustrate with the iTunes Plus stuff. There’s been some purchase I’ve wanted to make where I don’t really care about the DRM and the bit rate of the song isn’t that important - you know, just a catchy pop tune ‘for the moment’. When I’ve gone to purchase it, iTMS is only offering the more expensive ‘Plus’ version. What’s up with that? I thought you were going to be able to choose if you wanted to pay the extra or not!

Posted by DomArchitect on October 15, 2007 at 10:17 PM (CDT)

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DomArchitect

You have to go into your account settings and select whether you want to see iTunes plus content or not.

Posted by Harmonyx on October 15, 2007 at 10:50 PM (CDT)

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DomArchitect: Not all songs have a DRM-free version available, either, I believe it’s the choice of the artist/label whether they want to offer that option or not.

Posted by illnoise on October 16, 2007 at 12:35 PM (CDT)

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Great news indeed. Here in Australia, a DRM song is $1.69 and an iTunes Plus song was $2.39, so that’s a 70c saving for us. Also, 256kbps AAC is a bit better than 256kbps MP3, so that combined with the extended tagging capabilities of AAC and the convenience of iTunes means I still won’t buy elsewhere.